Jul 4, 2011

Gone With The Wind at 75: yep, still there

"To the post-war generation, things were much simpler. If someone asked them what a blockbuster was they simply pointed to Gone with The Wind — the very definition of a blockbuster, if only because for several decades it was the only one they had. Occupying an unparalleled hold on the number one spot from 1939 to 1972 — almost forty years — Gone With the Wind was the Hoover of blockbuster movies, both brand leader and one-movie monopoly, sucking up the competition on all sides. “The business of Gone with the Wind was not just steady, it was an economy unto itself”, writes David Thomson in his biography of producer David Selznick. Selznick had ambitions for Gone With The Wind from the word go: he used the casting call to find his Scarlett O’ Hara as a nationwide publicity gimmick; and once he had secured his participants, everyone in the production — Selznick, director Victor Fleming, Vivienne Leigh, Clark Gable — took up their positions for what amounted to a four-way group snarling session that lasted almost a year. “It was a case of utter chaos. They burned themselves, and out of the ashes rose this Phoenix of a picture” said Marcella Rabwin, Selznick’s assistant at RKO. “I have never know so much hatred. The whole atmosphere was so acrid. Leigh hated Fleming, with a passion. Fleming hated her. He called her the vilest names. Clark Gable hated David.” As the picture neared completion, Selznick knew what he had on his hands and wrote to Metro’s head of marketing, invoking D W Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, and saying, “the picture is turning out so brilliantly that its handling will have to be on scale and of a type never before tried in the picture business.”

By far the most interesting thing about Gone With The Wind, though, at least to today’s eyes, is what happened after its release, which is to say: precisely nothing. Nobody started manufacturing Rhett Butler dolls. Nobody tried to copy it, or make it happen again; it didn’t spawn a sequel, let alone an entire industry. Selznick tried to follow it up with Duel In The Sun, a film for which he pioneered an interesting new trick of opening the film wide — as wide as he could, in 38 cinemas. “If the public’s ‘want to see’ for a forthcoming picture samples higher than the reaction of test audience’s,” noted one critic, “you sell your picture in a hurry before the curious have a chance to get wise.” But the tactic — which would turn out to be one of the mainstay’s of today’s blockbuster industry — failed, along with the picture. It was back to Gone With the Wind whose reign at the top was further boosted by reissues in 1949, 1954 and 1961. The American people had spoken: they had their blockbuster, and occasionally they would take it out of its display case to have another look at it, but then they would pop it back again, with a satisfied sigh. The first serious competition it faced came from Cecil B De Mille’s remake of his own film, The Ten Commandments, in 1956, which took up a close second position; while the arrival of Ben Hur in 1959 made it a three-chariot race, and from 1960 to 1965 those three films took up a neat triangular stranglehold at the top of the box-office charts, until Julie Andrews vaulted up the mountainside and joined them in 1966 with The Sound of Music. Box-office statisticians, you can’t help but feel, had an easy life back then. Sat atop the pyramid, their feet up, occasionally glancing down to see what dim jockeying they could see down below, but basically filing the same report, every year, like the BBC’s royal reporters: yep, still there."

"The book is a must for Woody Allen fans" - Joe Meyers, Connecticut Post

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R E V I E W S

"What makes the book worth taking home, however, is the excellent text... by Tom Shone, a film critic worth reading whatever aspect of the film industry he talks about. (His book Blockbuster is a must).... Most critics are at their best when speaking the language of derision but Shone has the precious gift of being carried away in a sensible manner, and of begin celebratory without setting your teeth on edge." — Clive James, Prospect "The real draw here is Shone’s text, which tells the stories behind the pictures with intelligence and grace. It’s that rarest of creatures: a coffee-table book that’s also a helluva good read." — Jason Bailey, Flavorwire

"There’s a danger of drifting into blandness with this picture packed, coffee-table format. Shone is too vigorous a critic not to put up a fight. He calls Gangs “heartbreaking in the way that only missed masterpieces can be: raging, wounded, incomplete, galvanised by sallies of wild invention”. There’s lots of jazzy, thumbnail writing of this kind... Shone on the “rich, strange and unfathomable” Taxi Driver (1976) cuts to the essence of what Scorsese is capable of." — Tim Robey, The Sunday Telegraph

"A beautiful book on the Taxi Driver director's career by former Sunday Times film critic Tom Shone who relishes Scorsese's "energetic winding riffs that mix cinema history and personal reminiscence".' — Kate Muir,The Times"No mere coffee table book. Shone expertly guides us through Scorsese’s long career.... Shone shows a fine appreciation of his subject, too. Describing Taxi Driver (1976) as having ‘the stillness of a cobra’ is both pithy and apposite.... Fascinating stuff." — Michael Doherty, RTE Guide"An admiring but clear-eyed view of the great American filmmaker’s career... Shone gives the book the heft of a smart critical biography... his arguments are always strong and his insights are fresh. The oversized book’s beauty is matched by its brains”— Connecticut Post

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“The film book of the year.... enthralling... groundbreaking.” — The Daily Telegraph

“Blockbuster is weirdly humane: it prizes entertainment over boredom, and audiences over critics, and yet it’s a work of great critical intelligence” – Nick Hornby, The Believer

“Beautifully written and very funny... I loved it and didn’t want it to end.” – Helen Fielding“[An] impressively learned narrative... approachable and enlightening... Shone evinces an intuitive knowledge of what makes audiences respond... One of those rare film books that walks the fine line between populist tub-thumping and sky-is-falling, Sontag-esque screed.” – Kirkus Reviews

“Exhilarating.... wit, style and a good deal of cheeky scorn for the opinions of bien-pensant liberal intellectuals.” – Phillip French, Times Literary Supplement

“Startlingly original... his ability to sum up an actor or director in one well-turned phrase is reminiscent of Pauline Kael’s... the first and last word on the subject. For anyone interested in film, this book is a must read.” – Toby Young, The Spectator

“A history of caring” – Louis Menand, The New Yorker“Smart, observant… nuanced and original, a conversation between the kid who saw Star Wars a couple dozen times and the adult who's starting to think that a handful might have sufficed.” – Chris Tamarri, The Village Voice

"A sweet and savvy page-turner of a valentine to New York, the strange world of fiction, the pleasures of a tall, full glass and just about everything else that matters" — Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story and Absurdistan